


nicotine-tremble

by casalis



Category: Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF
Genre: Derealization/Depersonalization, Dissociation, M/M, Mental weirdness, Referenced Self-Harm but not really.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 01:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11476206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casalis/pseuds/casalis
Summary: He reaches, pulls back the big mug half-filled with sweet wine and drinks it, drinks in gulps until its gone and he lets it screech against the glass tabletop when he puts it back."Do you ever put your whole into something," he asks."Like you'd never be nothing if you didn't?"





	nicotine-tremble

**Author's Note:**

> rpf didnt happen   
> mental weirdness, etc. s/h is referenced but not. like you think idk its kind of a vent thing but not really it just needed to get out sorry mom.

His mouth is red with the effort of kissing and red with the sweetness of wine. Fingertips latched into shirt, gripping the unbuttoned lapels, pink with reopened calluses and the leftover scars from cigarette burns. Smoking down to the filter, teenage mistake of letting the ember get too close and burning into the thread of the filter and coughing it up, ember pressed hot against tender skin. 

He feels an emptiness in his chest and stabs his nails there, twists them like a knife. Presses hot ember into his wrist to feel something more intense and coughs out smoke, drops the burning tobacco and crushes it under his heel. 

The half-moon redness on his wrist gets kissed, too, and he curls his lips down to silence the hiss of pain. 

He's got scars. Most stupid, reminiscent of careless times when a spell, arms flailing, off of a board hitched against broken asphalt. His entire arm marked up, red and wet with roadrash, his cheek caught, too, and vision spinning with stars. He's got scars. Some with intent to remember what pain feels like, the pressing of ember and blade and he'd cut his thumb open in the effort to crack open the plastic head of a disposable razor, once. 

Silver and big blots of red against the sink basin, he'd grabbed them anyway and ruined them with rust and the heavy pulling into his dermis made his lips curl and his throat wind tight. Red and wet, the blood had skated down his thigh and soaked into his underwear. He threw them out the next day with the razors when the cuts had scabbed over and the hard scrape of denim through the new pair threatened to tear the scabs open. 

He reaches, pulls back the big mug half-filled with sweet wine and drinks it, drinks in gulps until its gone and he lets it screech against the glass tabletop when he puts it back. 

"Do you ever put your whole into something," he asks. Flicks his lighter on, pries the bit of metal off the gear and drops it next to the wine mug. "Like you'd never be nothing if you didn't?" 

Drunk stupid, he puts his fingertips into the flame and presses against the hot metal lighter's lip, hisses and swears in protest when it's pried out his hands. 

"Stop fuckin' doing that, Raf," he's scolded and the plastic clunks unhappily against the glass tabletop. It's frosted and stained with dried rain, remnants of bird shit you can't scrape off no matter how much Windex you scrub against it. The dried dead petals of trees collect in the ridges and the curve of plastic that lines the table's roundness. 

"Fuck off," he says, and pulls another cigarette out of the breast pocket of his shirt to get the lighter back. 

He doesn't. Daveed lights it for him, pockets the bic, leans back in the folding chair that's on its last limb. The water-worn fabric creaks with his shifting and he drums his fingers on the table. 

He'd done it just to remember what something felt like, hard metal into flesh, unforgiving heat into skin. He buttons his shirts up high for the reminder to breathe against his throat and wraps bandages around his ribs to feel the tightness of inhale, exhale, breathe. 

"White lighters are bad luck, Diggs," he says, and stretches his hand out. "Gimme." It's handed over, begrudging, and Rafa sets it next to his wine mug and breathes big grey-blue smokeclouds into the air. It curls over the table and he taps ash into the grass. "You know," he starts, leans back into the stretched folding chair and pushes his heels out thorugh the grass. 

"You know," he repeats. "You feel real to me when no one else did."

"Does," he corrects to keep tense. "You're real to me."

"Yeah," Diggs agrees. "Yeah."

Rafa presses the burnt ember against the tabletop and he coughs, throat rough, smoked out. He pushes the half-smoked still-smoking roll back into the carton and he calls them bogeys when he's drunk and joking and laughing like a teenager, again. He's not there yet, though, and he sucks the wine-sweetness off his teeth. 

He'd let Diggs do it, later. Breath out his mouth. Skin slick with sweat and teeth gnashed against palm, against shoulder, against neck or any free and available skin. 

He carves words out with teeth cut into crushed ice and nicotine-tremble, tobacco-stained fingers. They come drawn out and his breath goes stale when he smokes too much. He rips apart cheap cigarettes and mixes the tobacco with weed and rolls them into spliffs, tries again. Falls deeper into the rut and he never feels quite real when he's high. Never, never, he feels a few inches ahead of himself, his thoughts coming and going before he can process them and - 

and, "Shit, is that the sun?" he asks, head tipped back to see the horizon over rooftops. "You should sleep."

"We," he's corrected. 

And yields. Tomorrow could be real, again.


End file.
